Scientific Ethos and Knowledge Management

Abstract

The development of knowledge creation theory (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) took into account the values shared by the members of an organization, later generating an extended concept of "Ba" (Nonaka and Toyama, 2005), understood as shared context. Matsuadira (2010) defined the complex of organisational values (the ethos) as knowledge (intangible) assets for knowledge creating companies. I suggest that this leads us back to R.K. Merton’s theory of the normative structure of science and the ethos of science. The challenge is to ask whether we can we talk about the applicability of the norms proposed by Merton to the case of knowledge management in knowledge creating companies, or rather there will be some evident deviations and counter-norms. It is well known that the value of universalism is contested by particularism or that of “communism” by the secrecy of research. My hypothesis is that at methodological level the technical norms of knowledge testing and evaluation are universal and globalizable, but in the practical context of the action the guiding values and the mores of knowledge production are local and particular, i.e. depending on various social and cultural factors. The principle of glocalization (“think globally and act locally”) should, therefore, be applied.